Derek Cracco

These works use collaged ephemera such as romance novels, fifties pin ups, and men’s health magazines to explore society’s fantasies and fascination with romance. The imagery challenges the viewer to consider the ideals promoted by these pulp publications, and to compare them with the realities of their own lives and the concepts of romantic love.

The work was designed in Photoshop. I used Google images, using search terms like “nice smile,” “nice abs,” “nice hair” and so on and so forth– all terms that we define as qualities of a good mate. These images were printed on to wallpaper using a large format inkjet printer.